Though fools say Perkins never took, Like Mesmer and De Mainaduc, His patients' wild imagination, To join in aid of operation And though they say, on man and horse, Still, some among us can get through it, In proof of tractoring defection 21 From old exploded Mesmerism. > The whole pretence of Mesmerism, or animal magnetism, was long since proved to be a fallacy, and blown up accordingly, by a set of academicians at Paris. Our profession have shown great ingenuity in their endeavours to persuade mankind that Perkinism rested on the same foundation, and ought of consequence to share the same fate. As it is ingenuously determined to class every innovation, which militates against our interest, with some exploded practice, I would respectfully propose that your worships should do the justice to the person who first suggested the idea of classing Perkinism with animal magnetism, of requesting his acceptance of a statue. That a physician should neglect To notice e'en a good effect, Is nine times plainer than his nose is; And though it may be urg'd by some, To such reply you'll make no answers, The poker take and lay them level. 22 22 The poker take and lay them level. Please not to imagine that I would be understood to recommend this "retort courteous" in the most unqualified sense, or that it be exercised on every occasion. On the contrary, the due performance of it will require no small degree of prudence and discretion. Indeed, I would have you use the poker, or any other violent and weighty arguments of this kind, only when your antagonist happens to be a woman, a child, or some debilitated and cowardly wretch who will submit without any chance of your meeting with unpleasant resistance. As to the justice of this mode of response, there exists no doubt, and therefore dread no decisions in foro conscientia, because the extreme heinousness of your adver From Haygarth, borrowing a rare hint, saries' provocation will appear from the following consideration. To deprive you of an argument, for which you have sacrificed every thing dear to obtain, must, confessedly, be regarded as a most outrageous proceeding. Now, this is exactly the case in the present instance; for in your attempt to show that medical men believe and trust in no medicine, the modus operandi of which they do not comprehend, you make a sacrifice of truth, decency, and common sense, the full reward of which sacrifice you ought to enjoy unmolested. That no man can explain how mercury cures the syphilis, bark an intermittent fever, or opium produces sleep, is confessed by every medical author; and that all these should be used in our practice, without any hesitation, I never heard any person deny, and for this proper and substantial reason; their administration is profitable to the faculty. I have therefore to repeat, that when the Perkinites complain of your rejecting the use of the tractors, because their modus operandi cannot be entirely explained, although you adopt the use of drugs, the operation of which is equally or more inexplicable, your sacrifice in support of your ground is so great, that whoever attempts to drive you from such ground deserves to be laid low with the first weapon that comes to hand. 23 Will e'en bewitch the operator. No part of the learned doctor's management, in the anti-Perkinistick cause, merits higher eulogy than this most rational explanation of that most irrational practice. 1 Will break down reason's feeble fences, So cogently does an innate principle of equity control me, that I am absolutely coerced to offer, at the shrine of the heroick doctor, my tributary dole of the incense of admiration, for having presented our profession such a powerful knock-me-down argument, wherewith to buffet the common enemy. The sagacious doctor having published a scientifick treatise against the tractors, demonstrating that "they act on the patient's imagination," Perkins, came out in reply, with all the fury of an Irish rebel, and declared that the doctor deserved to be trounced for not suffering his readers to know, that the tractors pretended to cure infants and brute animals, though numerous cases to that effect had then been published; and in that reply proclaimed that Dr. H. purposely endeavoured to suppress such facts, that he might, with greater facility, induce the publick to swallow the deductions drawn from his magical manœuvres in the Bath and Bristol hospitals, Now, admitting the doctor managed in this way, I am sure he was perfectly right in so doing. The end in view, according to established principles of modern morality, will ever justify the means taken to accomplish that end. In this case, the end in view was most important-nothing less than the downfall of Perkinism, and the consequent aggrandizement of our profession. Should any of our opponents be so captious as to assert, that such principles and such motives of action should not be encouraged in society-that they have a pernicious tendency, and other nonsense of that sort, I must take the liberty to refer them to the first consul of the French republick, whose conduct has ever been modelled according to the principles above stated, and who is CC And acts a part, so very scurvy, They turn a man's brains topsy turvy! Will so bewilder and astound one, They make a lame horse seem a sound one! Then quote his lady's ECCHYMOSIS,24 certainly the most powerful logician of the age, perfectly able to confound those who shut their eyes against the light of conviction. But to revert to the doctor's treatise, and Perkins's im pudent replication. The man who could raise the very old gentleman himself, by the legitimate powers of necromancy, was not so easily defeated. Accordingly he returns to the charge in another edition-admits the existence of the numerous cases on infants, horses, &c. but lays them all level with the following unanswerable argument." The proselytes of Perkinism having been driven from every other argument, have, as a last resource, alleged that the patent metallick tractors have removed the disorders of infants and horses. Even this flimsy pretence is capable of a satisfactory refutation. In these cases it is not the patient, but the observer, who is deceived by his own imagination!!!" See Haygarth's book, page 40. Mirabile dictu! 24 Then quote his lady's ECCHYMOSIS. The celebrated story of the lady's ecchymosis comes |